Victor J. Blue @ BRONX DOCUMENTARY CENTER

An apartment block lies half destroyed in Raqqa, Syria, Sunday, November 11, 2018. More than a year after the end of the brutal fighting that liberated the one time capital city of the Islamic State, and a devastating air campaign that mostly flattened it, Raqqa lies in ruins. Photograph: Victor J. Blue

Victor J. Blue: Cities in Dust
April 4-21, 2019

OPENING RECEPTION Thursday, April 4th | 6-9PM

“Victor J. Blue’s panoramic photographs of the destroyed cities of Raqqa, Syria, and Mosul, Iraq, on view at the Bronx Documentary Center from April 4th to 21st, navigate a landscape of devastation from aerial bombardment scarcely seen since World War II.

Over the course of the four-year campaign against the Islamic State, the US-led coalition conducted 14,638 airstrikes in Iraq and 16,864 airstrikes in Syria, the bulk of which fell on Mosul and Raqqa, the twin capitals of the ISIS caliphate. The cities were leveled in the fight to liberate them from their captors. A year after the bombing stopped and the fighters were routed, Raqqa and the Old City of Mosul still lie in ruins. No comprehensive reconstruction plan exists; the viability of both cities remains in doubt.”